Finding free car parking spaces during working hours in the Presidential Villa is gradually becoming an impossible task.
A number of factors have been attributed to the ugly trend by some of the State House staff who have worked with many presidents and heads of state at the seat of government.
For comfort of the staff and visitors to the Presidential Villa, various car parks were created by the previous administrations at several points in the State House.
The old Banquet Hall adjacent the pilot gate has the largest car park in the State House.
This is because the venue, which normally hosts many state functions, apart from providing car park for staff, also made provision for Very Important Personalities (VIPs) and invited guests’ vehicles attending function in the hall.
Under past administrations, the old Banquet Hall car park get filled up before the commencement time of any major function at the venue, which always lead to spill over of vehicles on the roads by the pilot gate.
Another parking space, which is outside and close to the pilot gate, is the one situated opposite the Officers Mess. It also provides parking spaces for staff and visitors alike.
A new car park was created opposite the old Banquet Hall outside the pilot gate at the tail end of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
The car park was eventually developed following a ‘From the Villa’ write up of 18th February, 2014 titled ‘Haphazard parking at the Villa’, which drew attention of the government to how the land was lying wasted while escort and other VIPs vehicles always littered the roads leading to the pilot gate.
The car park too was put to maximum use during state functions at the old Banquet Hall under Jonathan.
While one can hardly find a free space during working hours at the car park opposite the Officers Mess under the current dispensation, the large old Banquet Hall car park is mostly barely half filled just at the new car park opposite the old Banquet Hall is always empty.
But the problem with the free car park spaces in these two car parks, which are close to the pilot gate, is that they are quite a distance from the President’s, Vice President’s and other supporting staff’ offices within the Presidential Villa.
Because of the distance from the pilot gate and staff offices within the Villa, there have been pressure on car parks by the President’s and Vice President’s offices.
To ensure that pressure is not much on the limited car parks’ spaces within the pilot gates and for security reasons, routine State House shuttle buses are supposed to convey staff and visitors from the pilot gate to areas within the Presidential Villa.
The shuttle buses however appeared not to be performing the function effectively even from the time of Jonathan’s administration.
Another way the management have tried to control movement of unauthorized vehicles beyond the pilot gate was by distinguishing between senior staff and junior staff on the identity cards.
Security personnel at the pilot gate are supposed to check the code on any staff’s identity card and then allow only senior staff to drive in with their vehicles.
While it is not clear whether this has been very effective over the years, the pressure on car parks by the President’s and Vice President’s offices however have been increasing by the day.
As soon as some staff scale the security checks at the pilot gate, they are immediately faced with a kind of puzzle and dilemma on how to find free car parking spaces inside.
Various extension of the car parks within the pilot gates by past administrations have not been able to solve the problem as staff and VIPs have resorted to parking on the road and lawn when the car parks are filled up.
Some staff have named the various car parks within the pilot gate as Maitama, Asokoro, AYA, Nyanya, Mararaba, deriving their names from their closeness to the President’s and Vice President’s offices.
The one called ‘Maitama’ is the closest to the two leaders’ offices and it is supposed to provide car park spaces for staff on level 14 and above.
But because of its small space, it always get filled up within the first one hour of a working day.
The same goes for ‘Asokoro’, ‘AYA’, ‘Nyanya’, ‘Mararaba’, which are meant for senior staff below level 14.
Increasing control at the pilot gate, more routine shuttle buses and expansion will go a long way to address scarce parking space within the Presidential Villa.
Taming budget padding
From many instances, accusing fingers have been pointed at civil servants as the most corrupt set of Nigerians.
They are believed to be stealing from the national treasury more than politicians as they are feared to own more than half of land and properties in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) alone.
While many ‘clean’ civil servants may disagree with this belief, recent padding of the 2016 Budget, which is delaying its passage, has been put on the doorstep of civil servants.
Even though they were alleged to have carried out the fraudulent practices successfully under past administrations, the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, which blocked other loopholes in the system, is believed to have made the civil servants to take budget padding to a higher level in the 2016 Budget.
But the bubble has burst and the President last week vowed not to let any of the culprit go unpunished.
Giving his Minister of Budget and National Planning and his team kudos on the preparation of the 2016 budget, he wondered how another distorted version was circulated to lawmakers.
Nigerians are really waiting for action on this as many civil servants who diverted pension funds among other frauds in the past administrations are still walking free in the society.
